Dark Side of the Ring’s three-part TNA series and Vince Russo’s new book have both put the spotlight back on the Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff era. Bischoff has not watched or read either one, and he is not interested in doing so.
“I’ve noticed some, but I honestly just don’t have the bandwidth for it, so I haven’t read much of it,” Bischoff said on 83 Weeks of the online discussion around the documentary. “I don’t know what revisionist story people are out there peddling right now, but have at it, have fun with it. If it makes you feel better about yourself, whether you’re a social media wrestling expert or whatever, have fun. Go ahead.”
He said the same of Russo’s book, Total Nonstop Agony, which was released this week and features chapters taking aim at both him and Hogan.
“No, I haven’t seen it. I knew he was writing a book, or a book came out, but that’s all I know,” Bischoff said.
What he did want to address was the premise underneath all of it.
“Let me make one thing really clear. I had zero operational control of TNA. I couldn’t hire anybody. I couldn’t fire anybody. I couldn’t give anybody a raise. I couldn’t fine anybody. Nor did I freaking want to,” Bischoff said. “I wanted nothing to do with the operation of TNA, so much so that I made it clear in my agreement that I’m not going to be involved in anything other than the creative I had agreed to do and oversee. And Dixie was fine with that, because she didn’t want me involved either. Trust me. Neither did Dean Broadhead. Neither did anybody. They wanted to run TNA the way they wanted to run TNA, and I was more than happy to let them have that.”
Told about reporting that TNA went from profitable to unprofitable within a year of the two arriving, Bischoff pointed to who actually held the purse strings.
“Dean Broadhead was the CFO, I believe. So if anybody should have thrown a flag on any of the expenditures that somehow took TNA from profitable to unprofitable,” Bischoff said. “Those decisions had nothing to do with Hulk Hogan. They just didn’t have anything to do with me. Not only could we not influence those decisions, we weren’t even aware of them.”
He was blunt about the timing of it all landing on Hogan, who died last year.
“When we talk about the decisions Eric made, or in this case, which is really chicken s*it, by the way, to all of a sudden be putting heat on Hulk Hogan when he’s not here to defend himself. Come on, guys,” Bischoff said. “But to suggest that either Hulk or I had the ability to kill that company is hilarious. I’d like to know the basis for that.”
Bischoff said he has no plans to read Russo’s version.
“Not enough to torture myself to read Vince Russo’s bllshit, because I’ve heard it all before. It’s all been out there before. It’s just regurgitating it, taking another dump on it, polishing it up so it feels like a different pile of sit, and putting it out there for the people that love eating it,” Bischoff said. “That’s what this is, and there’s a limit to what I can engage in. I’m just not going to roll around in the mud with this s*it. It’s not important enough to me to do that.”
His assessment of Russo himself has not softened.
“It’s very easy for guys like Vince Russo. We know his track record. If his mouth is moving, he’s lying,” Bischoff said. “What makes a guy like Russo dangerous is he believes his own lies. That’s where the pathological thing comes in. He believes his own s*it. Facts, information, doesn’t matter to a guy like Russo.”
Bischoff said the broader problem with the current wave of TNA storytelling is who it serves.
“People are trying to rewrite this whole narrative around TNA because they got an opportunity to do so on Vice, to all of a sudden rewrite their story and resurrect their reputations at the expense of people. One of them is dead, and the others, in this case me to a degree, and it’s total bllshit,” Bischoff said. “It is total bllshit, and it should be so obvious. It probably is to anybody other than that lower form of life that lives for this kind of garbage on social media.”
Karen Jarrett took issue with a comment Bischoff made in the documentary about Dixie Carter having a good heart. He is not backing off it.
“I didn’t experience what Jeff and Karen experienced with anybody with the Carters. I just didn’t have the same experience,” Bischoff said. “She did make a comment about how I made a reference to how good a heart Dixie Carter had. That was in the context of a broader comment that I made, and it’s one that I would make right here, right now, and defend to the degree that I felt I had to defend it, which is I’m not carrying around baggage, especially somebody else’s. It’s not my s*it. I ain’t carrying it.”
He said he never went into the documentary looking to settle anything.
“The fact that I don’t participate along with you, Karen, or anybody else that expects me to just go full bore Bret Hart and just blame everybody and point fingers and piss and moan, I’m not doing it,” Bischoff said. “I didn’t use my participation in that special to get revenge or set the record straight.”
On Carter herself, Bischoff said his read stands.
“I thought Dixie basically had a good heart, which, by the way, I do believe. She was in a horrible situation. She put herself in that situation, but she was in a horrible spot, so I’ve just got grace for that,” Bischoff said. “For me to carry around 10 years of baggage? Just be grateful for the opportunity you got, and take advantage of all the things that it has provided you, and let it go. That’s kind of where I’m at.”
The one thing Bischoff says he did push for was getting TNA out of the Impact Zone, and he made the case with a bit he used to run by anyone who would listen.
“You could take the Undertaker, put him in a helicopter, fly over a ring somewhere outside, and drop him down into the center of the ring from a helicopter, and have him clear the ring and become the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. You know how much difference it would make six weeks later? Zero,” Bischoff said. “Because any wrestling show, live action, shot inside of a soundstage, is destined to die. I believed it then. I believe it now. You can’t produce any kind of a sports entertainment show, regardless of the talent, if you don’t have a credible audience, people that actually bought a ticket and are actually emotionally invested. That’s the only way you’re going to build a wrestling company for television.”
He said the money problem was structural, and pointed at the network.
“There’s another big component to this, and it’s Spike TV. They had a lot to say about what their expectations were, and I did see recently Kevin Kay came out and made a couple comments about why they pulled the plug on TNA, and it’s because TNA wanted way more money than Spike was going to be able to provide to them,” Bischoff said. “It was a financial thing, and there was no way to grow the TNA financial pie unless you took the show on the road. It’s a catch-22. You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.”
Asked whether he would do TNA again knowing how it would be recast a decade later, Bischoff said yes, for reasons that have nothing to do with wrestling.
“I got to work with my son and get my son an opportunity that was important to him. I’ll always be grateful for that. That would not have happened had I not gone to work with TNA,” Bischoff said. “I know it sounds selfish, but for that almost alone, yeah, I’d do that again, because it meant a lot to my son.”
The other reason was the friend who asked him.
“My relationship with Hulk was important to me, and the trust that he had in me, and to be able to help him in that regard. If the situation was exactly the same today, I would probably make a very similar choice,” Bischoff said. “I didn’t need the money. I didn’t want to be involved with wrestling. I clearly did not want to be involved with TNA, not to disparage it in any way, shape or form, but I’ve been to that mountain, and I’ve been to the top of that mountain, and TNA wasn’t even in the picture in terms of its potential. It’s not like I missed the wrestling business. So I went there because of Hulk, because he asked me as a friend to come in and kind of keep an eye on his creative, because Vince Russo was involved, and we all know what happened the last time those two worked together.”
“Do I regret it? No,” Bischoff said. “Are there things that I would do differently? Of course. But for the most part, I’m satisfied with the way it turned out.”
